25 January 2010

You could say I know Butterscotch. I know it well. And more than most people, I know what Butterscotch is not, never was and, if it's up to me, which of course it's not; because I need the help of all pastry chefs worldwide, not to mention the massive corporations who decide what you eat, in what form, and, {did you know?!} with what flavorings... But I digress.

If it were solely up to me, I would make sure everyone, e v e r y one, knew the true, real taste of Butterscotch.

At my current workplace, I appear to be doing a good job of just this sort of delicious education. Because, contrary to popular plated dessert menu logic, this Butterscotch Pot de Creme is oftentimes selling better than my chocolate dessert.

I kid you not.

The People?

They appear to want the real thing.

Take that you imposters! You pretenders! Take that artificial butterscotch chips! POW! Artificial flavors be banished!

The People have spoken. With their mouths full.

Butterscotch, the passion. Who knew? Underdog or trendsetter, flavor or philosophy, back road or freeway, Butterscotch could very well be bipartisan. Who do you know that can cast aspersions on Butterscotch?

In some ways you could say Butterscotch is simple. It is merely the flavor of its parts. No fancy flips or one-handed emulsion tricks, no major machinery needed, no ingredients you can't get at your local regular supermarket.

See? Easy. Easy as a pot on a stove, whisk in hand, a dash of patience & a good, solid, belief in the seasoning & balancing power of salt.

All that said, pot de creme? It's not so easy. I worked for a pastry chef once who, after I asked nervously, "How do you know when they're done, when they're just set?" said, "You'll come to have a pot de creme sense. You'll know before the timer goes off. The oven will talk to you. Listen. The custards, and their corresponding ramekins, will teach you. You'll see."

And she was right.

But not everyone has it.

You have to be a student of the egg. You have to understand coagulation. You have to understand why. You have to be a Why Asker. You have to get quiet. Really quiet. Because when eggs talk, when eggs school, they do so quietly. Eggs are great whisperers.

You have to understand steam. You have to know what a water-bath does. You have to understand your oven. You have to understand the physics of ratio. Ratio of ramekin weight & depth to liquid custard.

You have to be patient. You have to have a gentle touch when checking up on your setting pot de cremes. You have to have the eye. Your eyes need to be connected to your mind, but also your heart. For an overcooked pot de creme looks a lot like an underset one.

All that warning aside. A pot de creme is worth it. Worth every worry, worth every every ramekin of wobbly, custardy joy, worth every pot de creme you have to dump immediately in the garbage bin because you waited 1 minute too long.

Pot de creme is not forgiving. Overcooked pot de creme? Scrambled eggs. Literally. Not smooth texture. Overcooked pot de creme feeds the garbage gods, who laugh in your face. But you have to stare them down, even with tears streaming into their hungry, mean mouths, and get back on the pot de creme pony.

A perfect pot de creme will evaporate in your mouth faster than cotton candy. A perfect pot de creme will keep you from sharing. A perfect pot de creme will leave you wordless. Will humble you.

I promise.

And so... the dessert at hand.

Butterscotch plays well with others. Butterscotch pairs with many other flavours sweet & savoury. Being that we're still in the thick of January & winter's brittle clutch, my dessert menu leans heavily on warm, hearty compositions. Butterscotch can still taste like itself up against some pretty powerful ingredient egos. Like cumin.

Who says cumin has no place in desserts? I seem to remember proving y'all wrong a few years ago when I made a Cumin Pot de Creme with Heirloom Apple Salad & Bee Pollen.

Cumin can be a bit frightening because of it's sharply bitter edge which is never demurely hiding against the wall waiting for Coriander or Black beans to ask it to dance. Cumin will more likely steal your car than open the door for you. So, yes, you do have to be careful with cumin.

But, up against Butterscotch, cumin checks her guns at the door. She hooks the arms of one slender, dashing, buttery pecan, stands up straight as an arrow, shows off a little leg, and lets a night of brown sugar, butter & sea salt take her away.

And if you're still not convinced, these brown sugar-salty butter-cumin roasted nuts sit on a deeply colored dulche de leche: one of the world's most voluptuous, silky, milky, caramel known to all whose tongues have come with across it.

To offer a bit of 'refreshment,' brightness, & mystery to the dessert, I pour a thin stream of cream on the butterscotch pot de creme's surface. The taste of cold cream is one of life's rare, secreted, pleasures.

If you were a wee bit afraid of whether butterscotch were going to be too sweet for your elegant palate, the cream is there for your tempering pleasure. If the plate were slightly too wintery browns for your intelligent eye, the lid of juxtoposed white would immediately balance the plate's aesthetic dynamic.

And if you, were anything like me, you would allow me to blindfold one of your five senses, and trust me to take you on a journey filled with familiar & unfamiliar, common & uncommon, rich & deep sensations, beyond your wildest imaginings.

Did you see that Michael Ruchietti was wondering out loud about butterscotch on Twitter the other day? He was wondering how different kinds of brown sugar affect butterscotch in which way. Cumin is so interesting in so many ways; a friend surprised me with a cumin chocolate cake a couple of years ago so that I know it's possible, but I never think to use it when I'm baking.
Btw, I love how much you champion salt. I use Maldon salt in everything and rub it between the palms of my hands to make it finer in baked goods (my grandmother taught me that for dry mint in a Persian appetizer).
LHR-->JFK just for your desserts, (or you know, the other way around), I'm on it.

What a passionate way to describe a dessert. I've never had butterscotch before, sorry I'm Greek, we don't have that, but, I want to learn how to make it. And pot de creme. And dulche de leche.
I'll try...

Hi Shuna! I just made some butterscotch sauce following the simply recipe's link. It behaved like the instructions said it would but upon cooling it became grainy. Is this normal or did I do something that caused sugar crystals to form? It is a delicious recipe btw.

"Eggs are great whisperers" is the second-best bit of food zen I've encountered this week. Number one? My friend Amber assuring me that when I attend pastry school in the fall, I should "just concentrate on the softness of my own butter."

o my god! i have never read anything like this in conjunction with food. nobel prize worthy. suddenly i feel like i am falling in love....your food writing is insanely sensuous. you are amazing (without being a drama queen, just so literary). golden hands with a gift for creating amazingly innovative and flavorful desserts, and golden lips~for making words come alive and creating amazingly flavorful verbal beauty! i am inspired. thank you. now that i have discovered you i'll have to come by and pay a visit from time to time.

whoa. just read another post. the expeletives and sexual metaphors and talk is so not to my taste. still, brilliant food and writing. but i no longer thinks this is quite my comfortable place for paying visits....oh well.

Shuna, have you posted the recipe for the pot de creme? I can't seem to locate it and I'd really like to give it a go - of course, I'd also really like to come to your current restaurant and taste the original. Hopefully soon. These frigid temps make for perfect pot de creme eating weather! Thanks!

I had the pleasure of baking off 30 or more creme brulees each night at a busy restaurant where I was pastry assistant. It's the kind of experience that inspires comment so I completely relate to your passionate outpouring on pot de creme (related to brulee in method) and timing it just right. I love "egg whisperer." Hilarious and right on the mark. For me, it was one trick that helped. Upon taking the custards from the oven, I would shake the entire sheet pan holding the ramekins just a little. If the centers wobbled but the outsides stuck to the rims, it was done. Not very scientific but it worked. That, and timing them every minute at the end of the baking time to check repeatedly for the correct "shimmy." (Eggs also communicate with their hips - do eggs have hips? I imagine in your world they would!) Thanks for another great post.

Hey Shuna - beautiful desserts all! Thanks for sharing...I have a butterscotch creme brulee on my menu right now, and though the results are worth the trouble I notice that my "window" between almost-done and over-done is very, very tiny. I stir in a few little cubes of salted butter and a little scotch and vanilla to the hot custard before it goes in the ramekins - none of my other variations on creme brulee do this to me. Do you have this issue with your pot de creme recipe?

hello Ashley, I'm not exactly sure what your question is? My own experience with custards that need to be baked in the oven is that they need to be cohesive, light emulsions, before heading into the oven. Merely pouring cream + egg + sugar into a container & then setting it into the oven would not arrive at the same textural conclusion as does making this into a mixture first.

Therefore, I would never add anything {especially solids} to a custard appareil after it was made & before it was baked. Alcohol, for example, has a way of denaturing coagulation, which might be what you're speaking of... Do tell me if your question was in no way answered by me and I will attempt to readdress it. ~ Shuna

Thanks Shuna - yes,it's got to be either the butter or the alcohol that does something to the texture of the custard, making it difficult to tell when it's set. I can pull it out of the oven at the right moment, having done this many times. But it's something that requires not doing anything but watching the custard for ten minutes. May I ask at which point you incorporate your butter and vanilla extract? BTW my recipe is 1 qt cream, 1 cup packed dk. brown sugar, 10 yolks, 1/4 teaspoon salt and I've been stirring 1 T. butter, 1 T scotch whiskey and 1 t vanilla extract to the finished custard before baking.

Ashley, I make butterscotch 'sauce' and add this to a base pot de creme (or in your case creme brulee) recipe for which I lower the cream since the butterscotch has so much cream in it already. I find I get a better butterscotch flavor when I can a. season the butterscotch and b. season the finished married custard, before baking it.

As a reminder, butterscotch does not inherently have alcohol of any sort in it. And vanilla extract has alcohol in it, which is fine enough for me because I would rather taste the ineffable, amazing, true flavor of butterscotch in a butterscotch dessert, than the taste of scotch, which is wonderful, I agree, but too strong a flavor up against butterscotch, in my opinion.

Custards are emulsions which rely on an egg's ability to coagulate. When you start messing around with the rules, you will have an inconsistent set, at best. While I agree that pot de creme/baked custards need a bit more babysitting in the oven than, let's say, brownies, I can not afford to have inconsistency that would lead to waste in my pastry department. I have too much else to do & make. ~ Shuna